Again - this is the FIRST time that she had reacted to an allergen in food at this restaurant. She had eaten there safely before. She did not expect artificial sweeteners to be in something not billed as "diet". She now knows not to eat at Friday's because they have apparently added artificial sweetener to a number of dishes where you would not expect it.
I did ask about a couple of other items (that VorGuy & I ate), they had the artificial sweeteners in them as well. Our daughter and my mother will not be joining us at Friday's because they have a reaction to the same thing (not as severe - but the more exposure the worse those things tend to get).
And Lil Sis is going to be asking when she enters a restaurant about their use of her three trigger foods...it is being added to her "routine" - but she'd never run into artificial sweeteners in every dish on the menu before, so it wasn't something that she knew to ask before last month's trip to the ER.
The two bolded sentences don't make sense.
Your sister has experience/knowledge that restaurants, such as Friday's puts sweeteners into various foods that aren't billed as diet. She knows this, she expects this. So how can you then say the sweeteners are not expected in dishes? If one place (Friday's) puts them in, it stands to reason she should expect other places - especially restaurants that cater to the same market/demographic - will as well.
She knows now that food NOT labelled as diet or reduced calorie may have artificial sweeteners in it.
As of last month, there were no artificial sweeteners used in the food the last time she had eaten at the same place. So - new recipe or at least a change from table sugar to something artificial.
She had never had this severe a reaction before, either. I may not have been clear in my phrasing.
There was a lot of artificial sweetener used for her to react in less than two hours and loose the entire meal about three hours after eating. Not trace amounts of sweetener, but a huge amount of it had to be in the food.
We asked after eating, because she got so sick so fast. And were shocked at sweetener being used in cheese bread and pasta dishes. The miso sauce was sweet - but if had been the only source of chemical sweetener, she would not have been feeling ill in less than an hour, really sick in less than two hours, and purging her stomach in about three hours.